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D20 Decade: The 1980s

“Freedom is not something you are given, but something you have to take.” -Meret Oppenheim

Chris A. Field Writing, Art and Layout

Additional Art from Louis Porter Jr.’s Image Portfolios Stock Photographs from Stock.xchng www.sxc.hu/home

Additional Public Domain Images from www.Dotgovwatch.com Military Images from www.dod.mil

Copyright 2008, Otherverse Games WWW.OTHERVERSEGAMES.BLOGSPOT.COM

Requires the Use of the D20 Modern Core Rulebook Published by Wizards of the Coast

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D20 Decade: The 1980s is a sourcebook designed to immerse players and gamemasters (particularly those gamers who grew up during the 1990s) into the culture and color of 1980s America. Gamemasters will find a wealth of cultural and historical details about the 80s, allowing them to breathe some life into a campaign set during the recent past. D20 Decade is genre neutral, and provides information which can be used in any campaign set between January 1, 1980 and December 31, 1989.

It doesn't matter if the players are battling leather jacketed zombies, going toe to toe with the USSR’s supersoldiers, rampaging through time and space, planning a bank heist, stopping assassination plots, serving in America’s most elite rapid deployment force, or running drugs in the ghetto… if they're doing any of that during the 1980s, this is the book for you. Here and there, you'll find suggestions for importing the themes explored by 80s gaming into other genres- for example by running a classic cyberpunk campaign set in a future stuck inextricably in the 1980s

Players will find an assortment of gear, feats, 80s flavored starting occupations, and character classes built for the 1980s. Most of the classes can be played straight, or can devolve into retro-camp, all depending on how seriously the players and game group takes the setting. Everybody will find an assortment of cultural details, rules modifications, and new uses for old skills.

20/20 Hindsight

You know how the story ends. It’s one of the biggest drawbacks to a

game set in the 1980s, and it is simultaneously one of the genre’s greatest strengths. Players can look at a history book, and read about the fall of the Berlin Wall; they know that if they want their players to make a killing in the stock market, they should invest in IBM as soon as the company goes public. The gamemaster should decide how closely the events in her game mirror the real world events. Does the Cold War never end, or does it end in a nuclear holocaust? Do Steve Jobs and Bill Gates die in a car accident, allowing a fictional company to begin the home computing revolution? That’s your call, and by changing the details and fundamental assumptions of the setting, you can keep your players on their toes. Each gamemaster needs to set their own limits on how wildly the setting can change before it stops being an 80s campaign and mutates into alternate history sci-fi. Of course, keeping the setting tightly grounded in real world history has its advantages. A historical 80s campaign can be educational, and it can also be easy (and cheap) to research. Few ‘campaign settings’ provide information about their setting for free; since you're running a historical campaign, you can use any history book or Wikipedia page as a ‘sourcebook’ at no cost. The shared history, accessable to every player and game master, provides a cohesiveness to the universe that few fictional settings can match. And on the supernatural front, players who build diviners or precognitives get a chance to shine. Since the major events of the recent past have already been decided and recorded, a precognitive player in a recent history game can rack up an impressive track-record of correct predictions….even if the precog fails to predict an unexpected in-game event or a flukey die roll. This is difficult to achieve in a modern or future setting without a lot of gamemaster fiat.

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Chapter One: Our Modern World

The first portion of D20 Decade: The 1980s includes only a few rules elements, instead focusing providing a history of the Eighties, as they unfolded on our world. If you're familiar with the 80s, you might want to skip ahead to Chapter Two: Imaginary Eighties, which includes the majority of the crunchy rules bits- new feats, classes, occupations and optional modern magic and heroic fiction elements. Of course, if you're too young to remember the Eighties, or want to read my take on the events and politics of the decade, stick around. Skillz for the 80s: Modified Skills in an 80s Campaign

Most feats and skills function normally during the 1980s. A few skills, mostly having to

do with computers, are modified slightly for a 1980s campaign, and are not as useful as equivalent skills in a modern campaign. Computer Use: Without the Internet, computer use and especially computer hacking is fundamentally altered. The relatively lower power, expense and rarity of 80s style computers limits the utility of this skill. By 1988 or 1989, the computer use skill begins to operate normally. A character can use the Computer Use skill to hack an 80s style system (either a desktop or a mainframe) as described in the D20 Modern core rule book. However, most computers are not connected to a network, and the Internet does not yet exist. A hacker must physically connect to a computer to access it during the early 80s. Finding files data on a computer system or network takes longer than described in the D20 Modern core rules, due to the cruder interfaces and slower processors of early computers.

Size of Site Check DC Time (modern) Time (1980s) Personal Computer (desktop)

DC 10 1 round 1 minute

Small Office Network (corporate mainframe, local LAN)

DC 15 2 rounds 1d4+1 minutes

Large Office Network (university or large corporate mainframe)

DC 20 1 minute 10 minutes

Masive Corporate Network (military or corporate mainframes)

DC 25 10 minutes 1 hour

Accessing a military or university computer that is connected by the DARPA-Net (a precursor to the Internet used for military research, invented in the early 1970s) is possible. These simplistic, bulletin board style networks are relatively well defended,

are usually Large Office Networks with Exceptional (DC 35) computer security. Memory space for early computers was prohibitively small. Most files were simple text documents or simplistic programming instructions. Graphics files

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were very rare, and a photograph or piece of artwork stored on computer will likely be monocolor or pixelated almost beyond recognition. Early computers were monochromatic, either black and white or black and green, though later monitors could display 16 or 24 colors simultaneously.

There is a very good chance that whatever data the character is looking for is not stored on the computer itself, but is instead stored on a large floppy disk, magnetic tape or reel-to-reel tape. Finally, performing tasks with the computer use skill requires additional time. Any task which would require a round to complete on a modern computer system requires at least a minute to complete on a 1980s computer system. A task requiring a minute requires 2d6 minutes to compete on an 1980s computer system. New Task: Arcade Dueling! Arcade games were the first introduction many children of the 80s had to computers. Though it’s a trivial use of the Computer Use skill, winning an arcade duel can get a young proto-hacker some serious respect.

An 80s arcade rat can attempt a DC 10 Computer Use check to clear a level on an early video game. Failure indicates the player simply loses a life in the game. Success indicates the gamer progresses to the next stage. Since early video games were designed for head to head competition, if multiple competitors are each trying to clear the same stage, the gamer with the highest check result achieves high score.

Gamers may add their DEX modifier as a bonus to this check.

Using the Computer Use skill this way requires at least a round. The gamer cannot take 10 or 20 on this check. You may not retry a failed check.

Investigate: Due to inferior technology, crude collection and storage methods, not to mention slightly poorer

training, investigators in a 1980s campaign cannot take 10 nor take 20 on an Investigate Skill Check. Research: Prior to the advent of the Internet, research involved a journey to a library, a newspaper mourge, or scanning through reel after reel of microfiche documents. As such, Research checks took a lot longer during the 1980s than during the modern era. A typical Research check during the 1980s requires 3d4 hours to complete. Having five ranks or more in Computer Use does not provide a Synergy bonus to Research checks, since most information is still stored on hard-copy, not in a computer system. Otherwise, the Research skill functions as described in the D20 Modern core rulebook. Perform: The Perform skill is fundamentally unchanged, though street performers in the 80s might use the skills in new ways. Dancers can use this skill to break dance, while rappers can free style with the skill. Performers can also choose to specialize in mixing, scratching and the other skills of the early DJ.

New Task: Freestylin’ Rappers and fans can pit their improvised on the spot lyrics against other rappers, or ‘do the dozens’ and trade insults back and forth, trying to get the biggest reaction from the audience. Performers can oppose another rapper’s Perform check; the rapper with the highest check result busts

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the best rhyme or cuts loose with the most scathing, hilarious insult. Having five or more ranks in any one of the following skills provides the rapper with a +2 synergy bonus on opposed rap checks: Knowledge: current events, popular culture or streetwise, or Bluff.

Using the Perform skill as an opposed check requires at least 1-2 rounds. The rapper cannot take 10 nor can he take 20 on the check. Retries are not allowed on this opposed check.

You Can’t Want What Doesn’t Exist From a modern perspective, its easy to define the technology of the 1980s by what the men and women of the decade lacked. It’s easy to forget how rapidly the technological landscape changed during the 1980s- the technological innovations of the decade built the future we live in today. The children of the early 1980s were the last generation born to communicate without e-mail or without omnipresent blogs. Cellphones didn't come into wide usage until the middle of the decade, and these crude prototypes were incredibly bulky and prohibitively expensive. Before the cell phone shrunk to its current convenient size, beepers enjoyed a brief prominence, before fading into ghetto obscurity as a symbol of drug-dealer culture. The following pieces of gear, described in the D20 Modern core rulebook, did not exist during the real world’s 1980s. Of course, heroes working for an top secret government agency like Department Seven might have access to early prototypes, tech pilfered from the future or parallel realities. Still, even if the heroes manage to aquire 21st century or more advanced technology, comparable consumer technology simply doesn’t exist. Some of these items are replaced with bulker, inferior 1980s analouges, which are described later.

Computers and Consumer Electronics Camera (digital), Cellphone, Computer (desktop or notebook), PDA, Digital Audio Recorder, Modem, PDA, Portable Satelite phone, Portable Video Camera

Surveillance Gear Caller ID Defeater, Cellular

Interceptor Professional Equipment

Evidence Kit (Deluxe) Survival Gear

Binoculars (Rangefinding, Electro-optical), GPS Receiver Weapon Accesssories

Laser Sight, Scope (Electro-Optical) Body Armor

Light Undercover Shirt, Pull-Up Pouch Vest, Light-Duty Vest

Vehicles The statistics provided for most modern vehicles can be used to simulate 1980s cars and trucks simply by changing the vehicle’s name, description and flavor text. It’s fairly easy to rename a Volkswagen Jetta into a VW Rabbit, or transform a Chevy Suburban into a 1980s style family van (possibly complete with an airbrushed fantasy scene on the sides?). Car enthusiasts can easily tweak the preformance (typically by reducing the vehicle’s stats slightly to better simulate the limitations of 1980s technology). The biggest difference between 2008’s civilian vehicles and their 1980s equivalents are the standard options installed. During the early 1980s, luxuries air conditioning wasn’t a standard option Instead of CD or integrated MP3 players, older model cars had tape decks (or 8-trac decks for truly ancient models), and simple, low fidelity radios. Airbags and some now

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